Workers move chairs out of the Hubbard center and into a truck.
The Hubbard center is temorarily relocating to the area
that previously housed the student organization space.
SAM CARAVANA / THE DEPAUW
Walking into the UB Building, or “The Hub” as students like to call it, usually entails passing through a lounge of couches, by a few desks and past signs and faculty all encouraging students to expand on their careers. Recently, this area has be filled with workers emptying the place of every piece furniture and equipment, leaving only a few people and desks behind.
DePauw’s Hubbard Center for Student Engagement is dedicated to helping students find internships, jobs and study abroad opportunities. Usually located on the first floor of the UB Building, it began its relocation downstairs on Tuesday until the new center is fully renovated. While the center was hindered from April 27th to the 29th, the moving of the Hubbard Center did not effect its commitment to helping students.
“The move is making us take a little bit of a hit now, but we are still open for business, and have continued to take appointments with students despite everything being moved,” Dean of Experiencial Learning and Career Planning, Raj Bellani said, smiling as he sat waiting for students to approach him at the white marble table.
Improvements being made to the Hubbard Center will increase its ability to help students and employers work to achieve their goals.
Sophomore and Hubbard Center employee Yuka Kitajima is looking foward to these changes and agrees that the new location will make the Hubbard Center more accessible to all students. "I hope this change brings more students visiting the Hubbard Center and making the most out of what we have to offer," said Kitajima.
Bellani is also looking forward to how the changes will better equip DePauw students with the resources they need.
“The new Hubbard Center for Student Engagement will be about nine thousand square feet and two levels. We are renovating everything from the current lounge, all the way to McDermond Center and up to the board room," he said. "It will have rooms for presentations from employers, student interviews and study abroad presentation.”
The decision to make the move now instead of during the summer, when most students are away, was to give the construction a jump start. This way when students come back in August the new Hubbard Center should be close to completed.
“We started moving now to give the contractors the month of May so the Hubbard Center could start ahead of time. We should officially move back and reopen in September,” Bellani said.
The relocating of the Hubbard Center was inevitable if the final improvements were to be made. Either the move would occur now, allowing the center to open in September, or the move would happen over the summer, pushing back the grand opening somewhere into October or November.
Sophomore Ellen Tinder was excited to see the move occur.
"This move is great because it means that the construction is happening and things are on schedule," Tinder said.
In any case, the three day relocation process did not effect the center too much, and it is now up and running again in the lower level of the UB Building, next to the post office, and across from tech services.
Students weren't really inconvienced by the move either.
"As an RA [First-year resident assistant] I don't really use the student org space for more than making door decs."